Hell's Hotel by Lesley Choyce

see you get messed up.”
    Jenn looked up just then, off towards the ferry terminal. “Oh shoot,” she said.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?”
    â€œThere he is. He must have seen me with you.” Jenn got up and pulled Tara along, away from the terminal and towards Privateer’s Wharf. As they walked, Tara asked, “What’s going on? What are we doing? Why don’t you introduce me to Prince Charming?”
    They had turned the corner of a building now and were standing in an old courtyard with cobblestones. In the middle of the courtyard was a pillory once used to punish criminals. Jenn looked like she didn’t really want to answer the question. She sucked in her breath and scanned the harbour again. So did Tara, but they saw nothing but soaring gulls.
    â€œWell?”
    â€œWell, it’s like this. Rob doesn’t want me talking to you.”
    â€œWhy not?” Tara said. She didn’t know Rob at all, but suddenly she felt very hostile towards him.
    â€œHe thinks you try to put too many ideas into my head.”
    Tara had to laugh out loud. It was a laugh of outrage more than anything else. “Jenn, you’re not going to listen to him, are you?”
    Jenn looked a little embarrassed. She shook her head no. “It’s just that this guy feels very protective. He says that, if I want to live with him, he doesn’t want me out hanging around, you know, doing my own things. He says he doesn’t trust the kids back on Grafton Street. He wants to know what I’m up to all the time. He says school is just a bunch of nonsense. I mean, look at what I have to put up with — people staring at me, talking about me, everybody knowing my problems.”
    â€œHe wants you to quit school?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œJenn, don’t be crazy! Don’t throw it all away.” Tara was almost screaming at her. People were looking at them.
    â€œI don’t know what to do.” Jenn had that frantic look in her eyes, like a wounded animal.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Tara said. “Jenn, this guy is trying to control you. That’s not right. He can’t tell you what to do. Nobody has the right to take you over. Is there more? He doesn’t, like, hit you or threaten you, does he?”
    Jenn looked at the stones in the wall, then back at her friend. “He doesn’t really hit me or anything like that. But he says stuff that really hurts. He makes me feel that, if I don’t stay with him, then nobody is gonna want me. I’ll be all alone.” And then she began to cry.
    â€œJenn, you’re not alone. I talked to your mother yesterday. She’s still mad at you, but you can go home if you want.”
    â€œI can’t.”
    â€œThen come stay at my place.”
    â€œIt would be the end of our friendship. We’d end up hating each other.”
    â€œIf you stay with Rob, we may never have a chance to stay friends. There is another option. Let’s go check out this place called Phoenix House. They take in kids who can’t go home.”
    Jenn was shaking her head no. “I can’t. I’d hate it.” She was trying to stop crying.
    Tara saw him first. Rob turned the corner of the building and spotted them. He was walking their way. He pretended to not even see Tara.
    â€œI wondered what happened to ya,” he said to Jenn.
    Jenn was trying to pretend she hadn’t been crying, but Rob could see what was going on.
    He looked at Tara and could figure out easily enough who she was. “I thought I asked you to stay away from her,” he said to Jenn. “What’d she say that made you so unhappy?” When he turned to Tara again, he glared at her.
    â€œYou have no right to control her life,” Tara lashed out at him.
    â€œYou stay out of it!” Rob snarled, then turning to Jenn, said, “Let’s get out of here. Let’s go home.”
    â€œJenn, you don’t have to go